


ire

by epsiloneridani



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blood, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 11:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15840048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsiloneridani/pseuds/epsiloneridani
Summary: Rage is fire. Douglas's burns brighter than most.Then there's Jerome's.--cross-posted on tumblr





	ire

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: mentions of blood, Spartan augmentations/surgeries

Back on Reach, they told him he had a temper.

Mendez pulled him aside after he survived reugmentation and stared him straight in the eye and told him that that fire had helped him adapt, helped him overcome, but now conquering it, tempering it, would be both his greatest challenge and hardest-fought victory -- told him he was a Spartan now, told him he would be part of a _team_ now. He'd nodded along with blood streaming from his eyes, still stinging and stiff from the second round of surgeries, and snapped _yes, sir._

He remembers that after Atriox. The medbay smells the same.

No one's there when he wakes up, though the _Spirit of Fire_  shudders and shakes before an onslaught. He's halfway up and out of the bed when one of their few living medical staff presses a trembling hand to his uninjured shoulder and says, "Stay there, Spartan. You were badly injured."

He can move it but his left arm's still tingling, mostly numb. Small mercy, maybe. "Alice?" he asks. "Jerome?"

Asking about Spartans by name wouldn't mean much to any other crew out in the galaxy but the _Spirit's_  complement has been together long enough that they actually know. "Alice is MIA," she says, straightening her spine. She's young, was probably fresh out of the medical academy when they went to Arcadia 28 years ago. Maybe too young to know what that really means. _MIA._

His gut twists. "Jerome?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

He stays put for as long as he can manage, motionless until the buzz rippling through the ship becomes too strong to ignore. Something's happening -- something big.

The medic tries to stop him, trailing him down the hall to the armory and standing in the door while he suits up, hovering like she's torn between going to get someone else to drag him back and trying to talk some sense into him herself.

He's just about to slide his helmet on when she disappears. He looks again and it's Cutter's stern scowl staring him down, measured and indecipherable. "You're not cleared, Douglas."

"I cleared myself, Captain," Douglas says, and though it comes out easily there's an edge that underscores it. "Where am I going?"

Cutter's jaw twitches -- once -- and then eases. Situation's dire then, too dire to keep a Spartan out of the fight, even one that's at less than full power. "Walk with me to the bridge," he orders, already turning to leave. The _Spirit_  rumbles beneath their feet. "I'll brief you on the way."

His chest burns when he rockets through the atmosphere, burns when he hits the Wraith and shatters straight through, and the rage sinks into the pit of his stomach, quelled, controlled. Alice is alive and he's fighting with Jerome by his side and for all the chaos around him one thing in the universe is right.

\--

"I'm still gonna kill him," he says later, when there's a long enough lull that Jerome had him committed to medbay again to finish recovering. There's no fire to it now; it's just an old promise, to keep up appearances, maybe. Alice laughs and almost shoves him before she remembers. Then she just sits back, props her feet up and folds her arms.

"Why don't you worry about getting out of the hospital bed before you start thinking about revenge?" she challenges. She's never been one for all-consuming vengeance, though she's competitive as hell and maybe the only person to actually _enjoy_ some of the Spartan trials. She never needed anger to carry her through; she's only ever needed her own drive.

There's a grin on her lips that Douglas returns. Jerome does too, but it's wan, faint, until Alice punches his arm and says, "Hey, we're all alive. That's what counts."

"Yeah," he says. "I know." He forces a smile but they know him well enough to see the darkness seething behind it and something goes cold in Douglas's chest. For him, anger has always been a way to adjust, to cope, and then to adapt and conquer. It worked on Reach. It worked here.

Jerome is different: he's always burning.

Alice doesn't say anything, but they share a glance Jerome misses. It's a silent promise, a solemn oath: _we'll watch out for him._

\--

The next time they see Atriox, he slaughters three squads of ODSTs before Red Team could make it to their position, before Red Team could save them, and Douglas skids to a stop beside his squad. Atriox's horde is charging forward to surround him, a vicious, snarling shield.

"You were foolish to face me," Atriox barks. There's an ODST helmet in his hand and he raises it high, crushing it with a roaring laugh. The swarm rages with him, rumbling, a riptide, and Douglas tightens his grasp on his rifle.

Jerome's frozen, fixated on the helmet Atriox flings carelessly behind him.

"You survived our first meeting, demons. I will not be so merciful again."

He escapes before they can reach him. The battlefield is a graveyard, wreckage and ruin. Jerome kneels beside a fallen Marine and closes the corpse's eyes. Cutter made him acting Commander. These are his troops now, his responsibility.

And so many of them are dead.

\--

When they finally catch up, Atriox faces them alone. When they finally catch up, Jerome's as silent as stone.

"We do this together," he grits out, and though he can't see his face Douglas knows his jaw is locked and his eyes are shot through with sparking, seething flame. Alice straightens at his side, brimming confidence and burning determination, and Douglas follows her lead.

"You should have surrendered when you had the chance," Jerome growls.

Atriox tosses his head back and _laughs._  It's warped, shards of shattered glass. "You delude yourself," he sneers. His gravity hammer is held high. "I'll bathe in your blood."

Jerome's different. Jerome's always burning.

The inferno surges, rises, roars, and Douglas watches him bask in its flame -- a firestorm, a phoenix. It's an instant. It's an eternity. He doesn't speak. He doesn't need to.

_Together._

They charge as one.

\--


End file.
